Holy Crap (Again)! More Updates!

Hey there, blog buddies!  As I mentioned in last week's installment, we've had lots of things going on over the past few months, and I wanted to bring everyone up to speed on the inhabitants of Casa de Olsen and what we've been doing.  Last week's post covered the fun stuff, so let's get into the less exciting news (as I previously mentioned, spoiler alert, it all does come out okay, for the most part).  

You know things are going well when

the blog entry starts with an x-ray

Y'all, January was rough in this house.  In one calendar month, we were dealt the following crap-tastic hand:

So. Much. Mucus. - during our last days visiting with family in Jacksonville over Christmas, a few folks started to feel not so great.  While we tried to limit our exposure somewhat, there's only so much you can do, and sure enough, around New Year's Eve, we both fully succumbed to massive, gnarly head colds that greatly overstayed their welcomes.  Chris had it worse than I did - his morphed into a full-blown sinus infection, hooray, complete with antibiotics - but both of us weren't feeling normal again for a solid three weeks or so.  Even though this was super duper lame, we still count ourselves lucky - one of my cousins and her boyfriend who attended our family Christmas actually contracted COVID.  It's possible that our head cold symptoms were omicron in disguise (and we quarantined just in case), but several rapid tests on each of us all came back negative.  Thankfully, everyone is back to feeling good once more.

When I was Googling to find a picture

of this dude, the auto-complete

came up, "Mucinex Booger."

Delightful.

My Stupid Ankle - frequent blog readers will remember the posts I made back in early November about running a 5K and half marathon in Long Beach, roughly a week after taking a tumble and turning my left ankle while out on an easy lunchtime run.  As I mentioned in those blogs, I was really careful with the ankle leading up to the events, but it supported me without too much complaining throughout the races; once that was over, I really took it easy on my lower half, moving my fitness focus off running/biking and onto exercises like upper body/core strength training and yin yoga.  I told myself that I'd allow ample time for the ankle to heal, and if it was still giving me trouble by Thanksgiving, I'd call my doc and schedule an appointment (the ankle didn't hurt all the time, but if I walked too much or whatnot, it would ache the next day).  When I called in late November, the earliest appointment was on January 4th, so I put it on my calendar and continued to try not to stress it too much.

At the January appointment (which I attended despite feeling like warmed-over butt due to the head cold mentioned above), my primary care referred me for x-rays, and after he took a look at them, he pronounced the ankle broken, referring me once again - this time, to an orthopedic surgeon.  While waiting the three weeks for an appointment with that office (I know, I know, it's rough for everyone right now - that knowledge didn't make the wait any less annoying), I did some research and put together a few possible scenarios: would I need surgery? Would I be in a boot? Would I ever run again?  What would happen?!?!?  (My sleep quality wasn't exactly stellar during this time period.)

The ortho wanted to take his own set of x-rays, one of which is included at the top of this blog.  He also did tons of manipulation on the ankle, moving it around, back and forth, up and down, and comparing it to the one on the right (now known as "the good one").  After checking everything out, he gave me great news - while it's possible I might have broken the ankle in my October fall, it was currently considered healed.  Surgery or immobilization or finding a replacement for Ragnar in November would not be required; instead, a six-week stint in Physical Therapy would be his recommendation.  HUZZAH!

The reason my primary care mentioned a fracture

is the little spot indicated by the

super professional blue arrow, above.

That little bit is kinda odd,

and most folks don't have it there.

That might mean that when I rolled the ankle,

the tendon/ligament that runs over the bone

sticking out on the outside of the ankle

might have stretched, and when it rolled back,

it might have ripped off a piece of bone - 

ie, a fracture.

This little dude might also/instead

be the way my ankle's shaped,

which just makes me extra in general.

Either way, no surgery for now!

At the time of this typing, I've completed around four weeks of my PT, and things are going swimmingly.  I've graduated from the red elastic band to green for certain ankle strengthening exercises, and my PT Justin has me doing lower body work, too - squats, lunges, hinges/deadlifts, etc.  Even better, I'm running again - it's short interval work (think 1 minute of running, 1 minute of walking times 10-12, etc), but it's 100% better than nothing.  When I returned home from last week's appointment and Chris came out to greet me, I yelled, "GUESS WHAT I CAN DO NOW?!?!?!"  He confirmed that I was once allowed to run again, and when I said yes, he went (in an extremely weary, put-upon spouse voice), "oh, thank god."  

Poor Arlene - one of the other things I blogged about last fall was our camper trip to New Mexico and the tire we changed along the highway just outside Las Cruces, New Mexico.  Once we made it home, we left Arlene in the capable hands of the folks at Always RV in Mesa (where the camper lives when we're not dragging it around behind the truck), and they worked with their maintenance/service team to order and install a new set of tires on our girl.  We headed out to see her in early December, and when we did, we noticed that the right/passenger side of the camper seemed significantly higher than the left/driver side.  Dave, the Service Manager (and truly a lovely human being), took a look and found a concern - Arlene's axle was bent!  We don't really know how this happened (it may have been when the tire blew, when we replaced it on the road, when the new tires were put on, etc), but we were looking at quite the pricey repair bill.  We ran through a few scenarios, including working to submit an estimate to our secondary warranty folks (we purchased this when we bought Arlene, figuring it might be helpful as we learned about our first-ever camper), but thankfully, a better option presented itself.  Dave and his team submitted pictures and a request to the axle manufacturer, and they offered to send over a brand-new one, covering all of the costs for parts and labor!  We're still waiting for parts to arrive (they quoted us 4-6 weeks, and we're entering week 6 now - stupid shipping delays), and we had to change our February vacation from an RV excursion to just a plain old road trip (with hotels and whatnot - upcoming stories on future blogs).  HOWEVER, we're more than pleased at the current state of affairs, and we really appreciate the folks at Always RV for their help.

We love you, little camper,

and we hope to see you again soon!

You Will Be Missed - in the midst of all of these relatively minor trials and tribulations, we received truly sad news, that my Uncle Richard passed away.  He'd been fighting cancer for the past few years and recently entered hospice care, so while his passing wasn't entirely a surprise, that didn't make us feel his loss any less.  Due to everything going on the world, his service couldn't be held for a few weeks after his passing, but in late January, Chris and I traveled to Houston to honor his life and see my Aunt Denise and Cousin Rich.  While situations like this are always sad, we truly enjoyed the time we could spend with everyone, and we hope to see this side of the family again soon, under happier circumstances (thankfully, we have a few trips planned in the next few months to do just that).  

A few family pictures from the weekend:

Saturday, before the service

From left, standing:

Ashley, Maya, Uncle Gene, Chris, Steve, Tim, Ron, Dad, and Rich

From left, seated:

Me, Nancy, Aunt Denise, Sandy, and Risa

Nancy and Ron will be celebrating their 50th

wedding anniversary in San Antonio in June,

so we hope to see everyone again then.

Saturday evening, having dinner in Houston:

Risa and Dad

You guys know these two characters

Ron and Nancy

Uncle Gene and Aunt Denise - 

older brother and his baby sister

Maya and Ashley - 

sisters!

Deep in conversation...about the menu.

Yup, that's me.

Well, I think that's the updates for now - sorry for all the hashing and rehashing of the not-so-great news, but for awhile, it just really felt like the universe was piling it on.  As an example, in the midst of the head cold weeks, I was taking a hot shower with the bathroom door closed (in an attempt to generate steam and clear my head), and Chris came in to tell me that Uncle Richard had passed.  The very next day, he interrupted me in the shower once more, to tell me the RV had a bent axle.  I told him if he came in again on the third day with more bad news, it might be his last action on this earth; he steered clear (smart man).  I think it wasn't just us, either - two friends our age both had mothers pass away completely unexpectedly, and another set of friends endured two car accidents in about three days AND had a giant aquarium crack and flood their office lobby.  I don't know what kind of "Mercury in retrograde" / evil spirits/bad juju / demon hole kind of situation we lived in for a solid month, but I am so glad that sh*t is over (the current land war in continental Europe and recent horrifying violations of basic human rights of trans and LGBTQIA+ persons in this country notwithstanding, I suppose).

Anywhoo, thanks for reading all of these tales of woe, and more entertaining blog posts in the future, I promise!

Later!

Amy